


Coffee Shop Conversations

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aradia is a badass, Cafe Charge, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, and Boxcars is an asshole, coffee shop AU, inspired by a comic I saw on Tumblr, nepeta draws everything, then I let my imagination run wild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1582676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You hear a lot of things in a college campus coffee shop. Especially with friends like Tavros Nitram’s.</p><p>Tavros and Aradia have opened a coffee shop called Café Charge, and their lives and the lives of their friends slowly shift to revolve around the small, strongly scented building. Café Charge and its proprietors gradually become the go-to place for relief or just to hang out, and the two friends learn to deal with being in the middle of things instead of on the fringes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Shop Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw an adorable comic on Tumblr (http://gin-and-djinn.tumblr.com/post/84662850446/tavros-and-gamzee-are-massive-idiots-no-matter) and I had to write about dorks running a coffee shop. I just had to.
> 
> The stories here will range from little scenes to multi-chapter arcs (probably), both in the cafe and outside of it.
> 
>  
> 
> I kind of just stopped this. Sorry everyone. I couldn't bring myself to delete it, and if anyone wants to continue this themselves, they're free to.

Nepeta Leijon was a good friend of Tavros, and one of his favorite customers. She would come in almost every afternoon, buy a chai mint tea, and draw at a table in the corner. Tavros thought she was an incredible artist; so did most of her friends, as a matter of fact. She often left little pictures when she left, of random subjects. A few weeks ago, she left a beautifully shaded picture of the pigeon that had been pecking at crumbs outside the window. Tavros put it on the corkboard wall in the back, where he and Aradia lived.  
  
Tavros liked people-watching, because even when two people did the same thing, they did it differently. Someone with a limp who kicked out their feet as they walked would do it differently than someone with fully functioning legs. Nepeta, for instance, always put sugar in her tea, like many people did, but she brought her own little sugar cubes. She put three in every cup of tea, dropping them in with little plops. Then she stirred it three times clockwise and three times counter-clockwise.  
  
Sometimes she would buy a scone or muffin, too, and pick at it while she sketched. She would usually do this when drawing more real life-based art, and would get a larger tea when drawing cartoons. Sometimes she would draw, um… sort of inappropriate art, while nibbling on a cinnamon roll. Thankfully, she took those with her.  
  
Sometimes Tavros thought she lingered around the shop so she could see Karkat more often; Café Charge wasn’t always the epitome of “quiet, peaceful haven.” It was more like the opposite, especially when Karkat and Terezi were there at the same time. And there was the really tall, bulky stranger who sometimes peered in through the window and made Tavros nervous.  
  
…And speak of the devil. The stranger was entering the café, wearing a long, black trench coat. Tavros tried not to look like a deer caught in headlights as the stranger approached the counter.  
  
“Venti mocha cappuccino, two pumps of caramel,” the stranger said. His voice was deep and gruff, like he was a heavy smoker. An image of Vriska at eighteen flashed through Tavros’s mind, a cigarette held between her teeth and her hair dyed cerulean blue.  
  
Tavros grabbed a cup. “Can I, uh, have your name?”  
  
“Boxcars.” Tavros wrote the name on the cup, and handed it to Aradia, who was just coming out of the back.  
  
“Venti mocha cap, two caramel,” he told her.  
  
“Got it,” she said.  
Tavros turned back to Boxcars. “That’ll be, um, $3.29,” he said. Boxcars handed him the money and sat down, giving the entire shop a wary glare.  
  
While Aradia made the cappuccino, Nepeta came up and ordered another tea. As Tavros prepared it, she leaned over the counter and beckoned to him.  
  
“I think the big man over there is packing heat,” she whispered, and Tavros almost dropped the tea.  
  
“Maybe he just wants coffee,” he whispered back. “Don’t call any attention to it.”  
  
She nodded, taking her tea and returning to her seat. As she began her sugar cube ritual, Boxcars stood—yeah, he definitely looked like he was carrying a gun to Tavros—and began looking at her drawing.  
  
“Who’s this?”  
  
“Oh, that’s one of my friends.” Tavros figured it was Karkat, judging by the wistful tone in Nepeta’s voice.  
  
Boxcars grunted. Then he picked up the sketchbook.  
  
“Hey, don’t do that!” Nepeta squeaked. “I mean, could you please put it down?”  
  
Boxcars continued holding the book, and started flipping through the pages.  
  
“I’m serious, please,” Nepeta repeated. She stood up, scattering her sugar cubes everywhere. “I don’t like it when people look at my stuff without asking!”  
  
“’M just looking.”  
  
Then Aradia was there, holding the man’s coffee. “Sir, if you’re going to bother our customers, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”  
  
Boxcars turned to give Aradia a sidelong glance. “This ain’t none a yer business, bitch.”  
  
Tavros bit his lip behind the counter. This was where intervention would be good, right? Maybe? Boxcars looked like he could knock Tavros through the wall with one swing.  
  
Aradia didn’t seem fazed. “This is my shop, so it is my business. We have a policy of asking politely for unruly customers to leave three times before using force. This is the second time. You can take your drink, or if you’d like, we can give you a full refund, but if you insist on bothering other customers you’re going to have to leave.”  
  
Boxcars gave her a long, steady glare, which she matched with equal intensity. “Gimme the coffee.”  
  
Aradia handed the cup to him, and he dropped the sketchbook and left without a backwards glance. She then bent down and began picking up the dropped sugar cubes.  
  
“Don’t worry about the little cubes,” Nepeta said. “They can’t be eaten anymore anyway.”  
  
“They don’t belong on the floor, in any case.” Aradia looked up at the other girl. “Are you okay?”  
  
Nepeta nodded. “That guy was really creepy. And an asshole!”  
  
“At least he didn’t demand a refund before leaving,” Tavros said, half-jokingly.  
  
“Or call Aradia’s bluff,” Nepeta added. She gathered the few cubes that hadn’t landed on the floor, and put three in her tea.  
  
Then she stirred three times clockwise, three times counterclockwise.

**Author's Note:**

> I may not update on a set schedule, and it may be a long time between chapters as I tend to procrastinate and then get swamped with homework. If this happens, feel free to comment and ask what's going on, because if I know people want a chapter that'll get me motivated to finish one I'm working on or make a new one. Check to see if anyone else has done this, though; otherwise I'll have like fifty comments saying the same thing. :P
> 
> Also if anyone knows how to do the linky thing (or if that's possible) please let me know, because I'm being dumb and can't figure it out.
> 
> And tell me if there are any weird mistakes, I looked over this thing like ten times but I may have missed something.
> 
>  
> 
> I kind of just stopped this. Sorry everyone. I couldn't bring myself to delete it, and if anyone wants to continue this themselves, they're free to.


End file.
